Hello everyone, here's where my story begins.... 1994 is when my weight started becoming a problem for me. I already had both of my children, one in 1990 and the other in 1991. I was about 189lbs after I had my second son and things were pretty much stable at that weight for me. I wanted to lose weight but it didn't become a serious problem until about three years later. I put on about 30lbs from 1991-1994, and it just continued to increase from there. Of course I decided to begin taking weight lost pills (phentramine/and the other phen). I both pills for about two months and quickly lost 50lbs. I thought the battle was over at that point until I gained the weight back about 6 months later (as I stopped taking the pills). I tried some of my own remedies like exercise and all types of diets. I walked and did lots of activities with my children but the weight just wouldn't go anywhere. Looking back at my weight lost journey there were a total of 11 years that I have been trying to lose weight with all types of attempts. I've taken so many diet pills and shakes that I can't even count. My husband and I attended a seminar for day one surgery in Chicago Illinois in March of 2008. In April of 2008 @ 232lbs, I decided to start working on a supervised diet plan with my doctor, I told her that I wanted to attempt a lap band procedure and she let me know that most insurance companies require that you have at least a 6 month history of a medically supervised diet. In addition to that my doctor had just started seeing a patient of hers that had the procedure done, she called her and let me speak to her to see how she felt about the surgery. I decided to go with the same doctor (Dr. Klem out of Central Dupage Hospital, in Winfield IL.) that she has since here experience was so positive.
So the 6 month program began. That included Phentramine, water pill and a 1200 calorie diet plan. I lost about 10-15lbs over the 6 month time frame, which wasn't very sugnificant to me. Once I stopped taking the pills I was right back at square one.... back to 230. In September of 08' I began seeing Dr. Klem, he has been performing this type of surgery for the last 17 years, he gave me all of the pro's and con's of the procedure and told me I was a candidate for either surgery, the bypass or the lap band. My husband and I decided that the lapband was the best choice for me since I didn't have any pre-morbid conditions. The process began the next week after being catagorized as morbidly obese. By the way when I started seeing Dr. Klem I was up to 242lbs, this was barely enough to be considered for insurance (why I'm not sure...). By the time my scheduled appointment for nutritionist came I was a all time high of 247.6lbs. That was a depressing time for me, I cried when I left the office and spoke with my husband about the weight gain that I was experiencing. We decided the I should try Weight Watchers to try and work on the problem immididately, as I had developed high blood pressure by this time and my doctor decided to put me on blood preasure medicine. I began Weight Watchers which I started doing very well with and dropped about 15lbs. Unfortunately I put the procedure off because I thought maybe this would be the fix that I was truly looking for. That did not last for more than a couple of months because of the high amount of sodium that was in so many of the meals. By now it's December and I'm right back in the same visocus circle that I've been in and now my weight has really gotten out of hand. by January I was a whopping 252lbs and had a very low self esteme. I didn't want to go to any social settings and couldn't fit any of my clothes. I was up to a size 18/20...I'd never wore this size clothes even when I was 9mo pregnant with either of my children. Life seemed very glomy for me. In January I decided to get back to business with Dr. Klems office and get the show on the road. As most of you know this can be a very long process because of all of the steps you have to take to be qualified for surgery. By March of this year I was finally finished with all of the steps that I needed (so I thought). My Information was submitted to my insurance company and I thought it was complete but of course my insurance company Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois denied my case. They claimed that I didn't have enough previous documented diet attempts for at least 5 years. When I submitted 7 years straight of failed diet attempts with one diet (Dr. Greenspon) doctor. My case was taken on by the Attorney that handles lap band denied cases, which took almost two months to get resolved. Finally got approved (this was a very stressful time needless to say).:tongue_smilie:As I was waiting for the approval I decided to try another dietary option, Weight Watchers (This was so costly, but my husband wanted to make sure I tried absolutly everything.....) by June of 09, I was finally approved... Now to set the date...July was full for my doctor so I opted to take August 12th. I'm now scheduled....:thumbup:...
Kept doing Weight Watchers for a minute until I ran out of thier food and I'm now at 239.5. My liquid diet starts July 29th, which does consist of some food. I am to have a protein shake for breakfast, a morning snack (which will be a fat free yogart without fruit), Protein shake for lunch, mid lunch snack (which will be sugar free jello), and then a dinner (I've opted to use a Smart One's meal which is approved by my nutrutionist as long as it has meat in it.) and I can have up to two sugar free popcicles or fudgecicles. This doesn't seem like a liquid diet but the doctor knows best and it's ment to be 1000 calories. My nutritionist said it was good that I've been on the Weight Watchers diet because it's comparable to what I will be doing except it's 200 calories less. I will continue to post after my procedure but I can say that I'm happy that it's all most time for me to get this part over with....It's been a long time coming.:confused:
Start Weight: 252lbs
Pre Op Weight: 239lbs
Pre Surgery Weight: ???
Goal Weight: 145
